GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapper & GPLv3 [LWN.net]

GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapper & GPLv3

Posted Oct 29, 2006 15:50 UTC (Sun) by mingo (subscriber, #31122)
In reply to: GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapper by malor
Parent article: GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapper

They're using their code to try to control what end-users do.

I think you might be confusing things here. Every OS code on this planet, including the GNU Hurd OS, "controls" what end-users do: that is what code does to begin with. (For example: the Linux kernel does not allow the modification of kernel-space memory by user-space code.)

The question here is purely implementational: what does the kernel code do by default? If you dont agree with the default behavior, and if you think the resulting work is still fine under the license, you can change the source code and redistribute the result.

(Some raised the "how is this different from the GPLv3 situation" question and the answer to that is simple: the GPLv3 draft was claimed to limit what end-users can do via the license. I hope you will agree with me that there is a big difference between code-based limitations and license-based limitations.)

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GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapper & GPLv3

Posted Oct 29, 2006 17:47 UTC (Sun) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link]

Oh for chrissake, you're splitting hairs.

The kernel devs were trying to make it difficult for you to run code they don't like. They've changed their minds subsequently, but they had decreed that ndiswrapper was Not Acceptable Code as written, and wrote a specific blockage of that code into the kernel. By name, even.

They were using, in other words, code to enforce a political viewpoint...and an INCORRECT political viewpoint at that, since ndiswrapper doesn't violate the GPL.

This is entirely different from code that controls behavior because of technical reasons, and you know that perfectly well. They were trying to limit end users from running *specific code*. They weren't saying "nobody can do X because it will break systems", they were saying "We don't like ndiswrapper and you can't use it anymore."

The fact that we can hack around their edict is irrelevant. We shouldn't have to.